Tag Archives: Inequality

Yesterday, 9th December, 2016, was International Anti-Corruption Day and many newspapers and journals used it to publicise the most venally corrupt nations, often those in Africa and the Middle East viz. NY Times.

These are developing nations, highlighted by Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, where those affected by corruption are most at risk of its exploitation by their leaders.

What Laurence and Anne-Christine have done is to shine a light on the developed West, where corruption remains a standard and where the mechanisms that enable corruption around the world, such as highly proficient banking systems, legal and accounting expertise, sophisticated technologies, exist to maximise the ability of those throughout the world to illegally and immorally syphon billions, possibly trillions, of dollars, pounds and euros away from legitimate ownership.

This is an important work that provides the bedrock of understanding for those who are interested in dealing with corruption to dig further into the subject. It highlights the enormous degree of corruption in the Americas and Europe, from political to banking, from sport to business to organised crime in a highly readable way but one that provides important information, not gloss. It also shows the huge challenge where, even in highly developed, wealthy economies, the desire to have more seems undiminished.

Laurence was a founder of Transparency International (TI) and Anne-Christine was a deputy director of Transparency International’s worldwide Defence and Security Programme (DSP). I am privileged to be both a Trustee of TI-UK and Chair of DSP, so I know the contribution both have made and also the huge work that still needs to be made.

The book is an important balance for the anti-corruption world. Corruption is not just in poor countries and, where grand corruption is concerned, the West is involved with the developed world anyway in financing the corruption and in enabling aspects of it such as money laundering. Together with the corrupt practices that appear to be endemic in the West, such as in lobbying, sport, political favours, business, crime-related, the West has a massive anti-corruption agenda to fulfil and knows it.

Three things, amongst many, cry out for action. First, there is the need for politicians and business people at the highest level to be far more active and vocal in this area. This includes their associations, such as Chambers of Commerce in the USA that are actively trying to water down the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to dumb down the level playing field and make corruption easier. Beyond this, politicians in wealthy countries are too devoted to increasing GDP at any cost and the danger is growing that the ethics of doing business will be adversely affected as a direct consequence of the inequalities caused by the banking crash of 2007/8. Brexit and Trump are such outcomes and, viewed from the anti-corruption side, harrowing in their potential.

Second, the resources that are provided to implement and manage the laws that politicians might deliver on are woefully inadequate for the task. If legislatures enact new laws to strengthen anti-corruption norms, it is the execution of the laws that fail so often through inadequate expertise and sheer money provided.

Third, it is time for anti-corruption to be seen as a positive economic benefit. Corruption is bad for the wealth of the broad population, assisting only those at the top of the tree. In a world that seeks to reduce inequality and where voters are making their positions clear that they will not tolerate their position for much longer, intelligent politics and business (and development aid) means reducing corruption becomes more important. It is a key method of increasing economic well-being by ensuring that enormous flows of corrupt money stays in countries that require it as well as in the economies where it can be properly used rather than syphoned into a tax haven bank account where it remains as dead money. In an age where the velocity of money is slowing, corruption remains a cause of economic decline.

Unmasked comes as at important time, just as the world is turning in on itself. The West should learn the lessons that are described so well in the book and use this difficult period to ensure that the first gear in which it has for so long been engaged is kicked into second and upwards not into reverse.